The Roundhouse in Camden, London.
It’s Friday 13th! Today’s blog post has nothing to do with that though.
As you probably know if you follow my blog, I see a lot of bands, which means I see a lot of music venues. Most of them are tiny, scrubby and stinky - which is fine by me - but some of them are so posh I don’t even know what to do with them. Unfortunately, with bigger venues come the massive cloakroom queues when you can’t go out in the freezing December night without a jacket, and on this occasion, I couldn’t find my way to the bathroom and then helped a fellow female on how to operate a hand dryer - it took me a while to figure it out too. Then I almost missed the band because my sister was queuing to the bar to get us some water following our delicious but spicy Caribbean meal earlier…
Anyway, last Saturday I celebrated my birthday in style watching We Are Scientists play their excellent, time defying album With Love and Squalor in full. The venue in question was the Roundhouse in Camden, and isn’t it stunning? It’s not a beautiful building as such - my favourite venues are usually old theatres - but it serves its purpose so well. You get good views from almost anywhere in the venue, the acoustics are amazing, and the band was in top form. Such a great night!
A friend of mine informed me that the Roundhouse used to be a train shed. It’s so amazing that this old building that’s so full of history has a dignified place in today’s society. The history behind the buildings is what most interests me about music venues - apart from the acts playing, of course.